Page 26 of Unbroken (Rath & Rune #4)

Ves stared at the wreckage of the coach in despair.

They’d hurried along the most direct route to the museum, only to find the body of the footman lying to one side of the road.

Like Fuller, he’d clearly died of some terrible poison, his skin blistered and swollen, foam on his lips.

The driver was a few hundred feet farther along, followed by the Chancellor.

For all her magic, all her scheming, in the end she’d been as vulnerable as any other human to Victoria’s toxic touch.

Then the wrecked coach, the horses long gone. A splotch of blood marked the interior, but there was no sign of Sebastian.

“Why?” he asked, not expecting any answers. “Why did Victoria attack the coach? Did she know the Chancellor was after the Books, including hers? Why did she take Sebastian? Where did she take him?”

“Victoria?” Mother asked. “Is that the creature’s name?”

Of course she knew. Damn her and Grandfather both. “Then you’ve seen her.”

“Only from a distance. As I said, I know more about what happens in this town than most.” She surveyed the wreckage of the coach with a clinical dispassion. “For instance, I know there’s another Dark Young, nestled within the heart of a poison maze.”

“And you didn’t think to say anything about it,” he said bitterly.

Thunder growled off in the distance, warning of an approaching storm.

“I spent many a year locating a wood where your progenitor walked. I doubt any other living human is as finely attuned to traces of the All-Mother, the Black Goat with a Thousand Young, including the passage of said Young. Your presence is whispered in the very wind, the song of birds, the pattern of ivy growing on a wall. Perhaps I should have instructed you in the art, but it didn’t seem useful at the time. ”

Because the world was supposed to have ended. But that was old news, over and done with. “Do you know where Victoria is, then?”

“Possibly.” Mother met his gaze, her dark eyes calculating. “But I will want something in exchange.”

His body felt strangely distant, as though this was all some terrible dream. Just like when Grandfather spoke to him with such hurt, as though nothing bad had ever happened in their household, as if his childhood had held no horrors. He was frozen, unable to escape, able only to endure.

No good could come from agreeing with her request. Except Sebastian’s life hung in the balance.

“If you’re wrong, and she kills Sebastian, I will be your enemy forever,” he managed to say, despite all the old instincts to appease her, to never speak too harshly for fear of what she might do.

Grandfather would have been hurt. But she merely gave him an assessing look. “Of course, my darling. I would never expect you to make such an agreement otherwise.”

“So what do you want?”

“I haven’t decided yet.” She took a step closer. “So, do we have a deal?”

“…Yes.”

* * *

As when Mrs. Norris had fed from him, Sebastian found himself swept away into the chaos of Victoria’s memories the moment her proboscis slipped into a vein.

A collage of images and impressions: drawing, honing her craft, illustrations becoming better and better. Rulkowski smiling with pleasure as she handed over the latest painting of one of his orchids.

Being drawn into the society’s circle. Sitting in on meetings, though she’d never been a voting member, oh no, never that.

So many important people, rich people, all of them wanting her paintings. Her father was a fisherman, her mother a seamstress, yet here she was now, sitting in lavish rooms, drinking wines said to be among the best in the world, though she couldn’t tell the difference between them.

Painting portraits, and yes, the paints and canvases cost so much, but it would all be worth it in the end.

Important people would see her work; money was just around the corner.

Soon, soon, she’d be able to pay her rent without flinching, be able to move into a boarding house where she didn’t have to put a chair beneath the broken doorknob to keep drunken men out.

Soon.

The Midwinter Flower Show. It was important to them, therefore important to her.

Looking upon the tree for the first time—both revolting and fascinating, and her hands itched to draw it. Fuller’s strange gentleness, murmuring to the thing while he made a small cut in its bark and drew off the sap.

She hadn’t been able to afford to travel to Boston for the show, but they returned with photographs and stories of their triumph. Recognition, fame, and of course the monetary prizes for their sap-treated flowers, as though any of them needed more in the bank.

Still, she was so excited when they invited her to celebrate with them.

Fuller insisted on including the tree—he’d installed a tap to draw off more sap, and spoke to it lovingly all evening.

It caressed him with its branches in turn, though how much it could understand or comprehend Victoria didn’t know.

Fine wine, scotch, brandy, all flowing like water. Soon she didn’t even feel the cold March night through her thin, worn coat.

Siewert was the one to ruin everything. He bragged endlessly of his machines, from those in his factories to the automobile he drove everywhere, no matter how short the distance.

“If it does the plants such good,” he said, slurring his words as he gestured toward the sap collection bucket, “what would it do for us?”

“It would cure disease,” Mrs. Tubbs announced, as though utterly certain of it.

“Sharpen our minds!”

“Make us stronger!”

“Immortality,” Victoria blurted, like a fool. Because it seemed so possible that night, surrounded by people whose lives went so much more easily than hers, her belly warmed by alcohol.

All their eyes went to her when she spoke. “Drink it,” Penelope Tubbs ordered. “Drink it and find out.”

The others joined in. “Drink it!” “Come on, Victoria, don’t be a wet blanket.” “Drink!”

How could she say no, with all of them looking at her so expectantly?

The collection bucket was too light—it should have been a thousand pounds, dragged down her arms, warned her of the weight of her decision. But as it was, she lifted it easily and drank.

The sap tasted like dirt and flowers and rain and rot. A rush of well-being went through her, even as she gagged the last of it down. It was working—her sight was sharper even in the darkness, she was filled with energy, she was strong enough to crush the tin bucket between her hands.

Then she began to change.

The others fled screaming. Frightened by their reactions, horrified by the terrible mutations taking over her body, she ran as well.

No one could see her like this. She was a monster.

They abandoned her after. Fuller refused to open the door when she begged for help, then shot at her when she battered it down. The others were no better.

She found shelter in an abandoned neighborhood prone to flooding. Hid there during the day, occasionally venturing out at night to scavenge. Her despair found an outlet as it always had, and she drew on the walls of the empty houses, scenes of pain and grief and horror.

Then, one night in May, while Halley’s Comet burned in the sky, hope returned.

It wasn’t a voice that called to her, not exactly. More of a sensation, leading her down into the semi-flooded basement of one of the houses she’d been sleeping in. Behind the crumbling brick wall, she found a Book.

The Book of Blood, though how she knew its name she wasn’t certain, except for the bulging veins ribboning its surface. She opened it, and within were the most wonderful illustrations. Teaching her. Guiding her.

Offering her a chance to save herself. Because the Book showed her that its magic and that of the tree were anathema to one another.

If she let the Book change just a small part of her, she could feed on the blood of those who had done this to her.

Their blood would change her back, and she’d get revenge on them at the same time.

Siewert was first. The Book’s magic helped conceal her as she crept into his bedchamber at night and fed from his throat without waking him.

And it worked—as his blood entered her, she became more human, the effects of the tree’s sap receding like the tide going out.

She wasn’t completely restored—not even close—but it was something.

And now that his blood was in her, she could use it against him.

Under the instruction of the Book, she used its power to paint the scene of his demise. Siewert had loved his machines, his stupid auto, so let them be his undoing. He’d have no choice but to act out the part she painted for him.

Let him see what it was like to have no say over what became of his own body.

And when he was dead, she went to his grave and commanded that body to claw its way free. It could watch over her while she slept during the day, make sure she was undisturbed by the occasional explorer or vagrant who wandered into the abandoned neighborhood.

It was a triumph—the first true joy she’d had since the night with the tree. But it didn’t last.

The effects of the sap began to creep back in. She needed more blood.

Penelope Tubbs was next—a drink from her sleeping throat. Mrs. Tubbs had always wanted to be in the spotlight, to have all eyes on her, so Victoria granted her wish. No one had been able to look away while she screamed and burned.

Things began to go wrong, though. One night, Victoria returned home just before dawn to find Siewert’s body torn to shreds.

Frightened, she fled the abandoned neighborhood—the Norris household would have to be her new lair.

Mrs. Norris was insatiably greedy, grasping—how many free paintings had she cajoled from Victoria for herself and her friends?

She never had enough: money, power, possessions.

Maybe she’d like having an entire slice of cake stuffed down her throat, blocking her airway. Maybe she’d like to do it herself.

Rulkowski was a social climber, clawing his way up over everyone around him in an attempt to reach ever greater heights.

He didn’t make the jump she’d planned for him, and it was the first time the magic had failed her.

She told herself it didn’t matter and made a new plan.

A better plan, since this time she could actually watch her handiwork from a safe vantage point.

Before then, she raised Penelope Tubbs and gave her a task.

The Book of Blood told her there were more like it, with different powers.

Hidden in the library of the Ladysmith Museum.

Victoria had lived her entire life in Widdershins, had a certain awe of the museum.

No point risking herself, when Penelope could do it for her.

It didn’t work, though she wasn’t really surprised. But at least Rulkowski died beautifully.

Someone else was at the bonfire that night, though, someone with magic similar to hers. She’d sensed him, spotted him, then fled when he and his companion came in her direction.

Who was he? Could he be the master of the Books in the library?

Yes, the Book of Blood told her via the illustrations that appeared as if from nowhere onto its pages.

This man had power and was now hunting her.

He came to the Norris house, but Mrs. Norris failed to kill him, and Victoria barely slipped away before they caught her.

But that was all right—she had a new plan.

The blood of her tormenters had helped the Book push back some of her transformation, but never cured her entirely. But this man…

He had the power of three of the Books of the Bound in his veins. If she drank his blood, drained him dry, it would surely be enough to cure her.

She needed to know what she was facing, though. The man seemed to be following the trail of bodies she’d left behind, which meant he’d eventually come to Fuller. She just had to lurk around the Breakwater Club until he appeared.

It went perfectly—that fool Fuller even came outside where she could dispose of him with ease. None of the man’s companions could do anything to her, and even his power was ineffective. The only problem was the creature.

It looked like a man, the way the tree looked like an ordinary tree at first glance. For a moment, she’d assumed Fuller had collected it the way he’d collected his tree. Then the creature looked at her and said, “Sister?”

Fury—she wasn’t this thing’s sister, she was a human being. How dare it put her in the same accursed category as itself, as the monstrous tree?

With Fuller dead and the creature between her and her other quarry, she’d fled—but not far, just far enough to no longer feel the connection with the man using the Books.

She’d stolen a pair of binoculars from Mrs. Norris and used them to watch from a distance, enough to determine the direction they’d gone.

She’d follow them and stay far enough away to keep her presence hidden. Wait for her chance.

How convenient it had come so soon. The man had driven past in a coach, with only ordinary, untainted humans to guard him. She’d killed them easily enough.

Why they’d tied him up, she couldn’t imagine and didn’t care. This was her chance—her only chance—to undo the havoc the sap wreaked on her body. His blood, the power in it, would obliterate the tree’s magic once and for all.

She would be purified, made anew. Even if it meant draining every last drop from his veins.